> Again, trying to literally count calories sucks and is demotivating. Setting up a rigid template for a week and then using it as a basic guide is sustainable and fun.

I lost a huge amount of weight when I was younger (From above 100 kg to 60 kg). I then added 15 kg back slowly, about 1 kg a month, while working out.

The most important thing I learned is that motivation is worth approximately nothing. It comes and it goes. It eventually becomes a job in itself to find it. If you base anything on it being fun and you being motivated, you'll fail.

What's free and sustainable is discipline. You don't weight and log your food because it's motivating and fun, you just do it. It's like brushing your teeth, it's something you have done for so long that it'd feel weird not to.

I don't think I've enjoyed squatting once in the last two years. I dread any session that involves squatting, but if it's gym day, I go to the gym, and if it's squat day, then I squat.

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david_shi 3 days ago | parent [-]

I think a lot of what people call failures of discipline actually comes from not having the tools they need. Someone who lives 15 miles away from the nearest gym will have a tougher time than someone who's gym is next door.

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xboxnolifes 3 days ago | parent [-]

I've learned to hate, and almost feel like I've unlearned the meaning of, the word discipline. I'm not even sure it really exists. One may feel they accomplished something through discipline, but why did they have the discipline to do so? Why did they have the discipline but not someone else in a similar situation? Did they actually create it in themselves, or was it just always there?

Discipline, commonly, seems to just mean "doing it even if you don't feel like doing it". If you get yourself to do something when you don't want to do it, you've basically gotten yourself to want to do it at some level. How is that meaningfully different from motivation, or some other intrinsic force? The thought tends to bring me to thinking about free will, but that's getting away from the topic.

Instead, everything feels more like routines and setting up your environment for successfully doing the routines you want to have. Construct the environment, and the routine follows. Maybe for some people counting calories makes them less likely to follow through with a diet, so instead they should only stock healthy foods that they won't over eat. For some people it may be the opposite. Or as you say, live closer to the gym to increase the odds you'll actually go.

	▲	totetsu 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		It depends on if you think how you feel when doing something is a meaningful difference or not I guess.